<p>^ I don’t really get your point, Schmaltz. My D1 decided she really wanted a small LAC because she preferred the small classes, the intimacy, the opportunities to get to know her professors and most of her classmates. She felt she’d be lost and anonymous at a bigger school, but could thrive in a LAC environment. So most of her reaches, all her matches, and all her safeties were of that same type; the only exception was one reach, Brown, that has a reputation for being more LAC-like than most research universities, though even that felt a little big to her, and including it on her list felt like a bit of a compromise—but it never made it to the top of her list, because it didn’t have all the characteristics she was looking for. </p>
<p>As it turns out, she was accepted to her top choice LAC in the ED round. But if she had ended up only with opportunities to attend her matches or safeties, she wouldn’t have “lost the academic battle,” because even her safeties have excellent academics; they’re just not quite as selective, but they’re very good schools, and all the same characteristics that drew her to them in the first place would still be there. As for the “losing” the “prestige battle”? Well, she was never in one. There was just about zero correlation between her rank ordering of preferred schools and the relative US News rankings of those schools—though any objective reading of the US News data or other information on those schools would tell you they’re all good schools.</p>
<p>I happen to think she approached this whole question in a wise and level-headed way, but pretty much just the opposite of many of the prestige-mongers on CC.</p>
<p>I think the idea that if you don’t get into a top 25 college or university you might as well just chuck your academic ambitions and go for the weather, the sports, or the skiing is just loopy. There are hundreds of colleges and universities in this country where you can get a quality education. Education isn’t an all-or-nothing, grab-for-the-brass-ring game. And there aren’t only 25 (or 50, if you include LACs) schools where you can develop the critical thinking, writing, analytical, and research skills, the theoretical insights, and the knowledge base to succeed in this crazy, complex world. But there are gradations of excellence. And if you don’t succeed immediately in getting into a school that some financially failing online publication using dubious criteria deems to be “top 25” and therefore “prestigious,” that’s not a reason to just chuck it all and go skiing.</p>